The angora ferret

By Jody Macdonald

​Angoras, the pedigree of the ferret world. So many people are talking about these beautiful ferrets but there are still so many people around who don’t know about them or know wrong information. Angora ferrets first came around when a Swedish breeder developed a mutation that were making his ferrets produce longer hair on the backs of their bodies. He decided to sell these kits onto a breeder (fur farm) in Norway who continued to work with this mutation producing the angora ferrets that we know today. A lot of people seem to be getting confused and calling your 'standard' long hair ferrets as angoras. Even a part angora - 49% or less, a half angora 50% and a semi angora 51% or more look no different to our typical standard kits. only a 100% full angora will look different. their hair will range in length from 2-5inches, sometimes more! They have a lack of undercoat and can have nose clefts which have small amounts of fur on them, some are being bred to have the perfect normal nose. For years people have been misinformed that the angoras are much more unhealthy than a standard, I can reassure you that angoras have come a long way since first being produced in Norway the only issue these guys have that is different to a standard is that the full angora females do not produce enough milk to raise their own young, if they do manage to produce enough the milk it isn't a great quality for the kits to thrive leading to kits dying early or failure to thrive. There have been some cases that the full angora females have managed to produce enough and a good enough quality to raise their own litter. Angoras are in the light of the public, breeders need to announce of any inherited conditions that they have and discontinue a line, but this doesn't mean that they carry any more or less issues. Typically, ferrets are bred, and you don't get to follow the whole process of the pregnancy, birth and then the kits growing before your eyes. most standard ferrets are bred, and conditions aren't logged for them, there isn't any history with them or pedigrees. So, for this reason angoras get a lot of bad publicity. The breeding of any animal is a work in progress. Good breeders are always trying to better the lines and health. When breeding you want to make sure the male isn’t Cryptorchid - undescended or Monorchid - missing testes. You should do a lot of research on your ferret to see if they carry this in their line. Also, that the tail isn't short and stumpy, and they are not deaf. These are all signs of bad genetics and these lines should be stopped and not bred with. You also want to ensure that the COI (coefficient inbreeding) is not high. Under 1%. When looking to buy an angora ferret make sure you do your research on the breeder, also check out the lines they are using and ask around about what the linage is like if you can. Ask people who have previously bought kits off the breeder what they are like, how helpful they can be and how supportive they are.I'm not an expert and learning new things every year. I hope you learn to love angora ferrets like I have.​